


Five Times Penny’s Story Was All About Simon (and one time maybe it wasn’t)

by burglebezzlement



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Cookies, Five Times, Gen, Podfic Available, Pre-Book: Carry On, worsegers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Penny was the Dread Companion, and one time she found a story that was just about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Penny’s Story Was All About Simon (and one time maybe it wasn’t)

**I**

The Bunces knew about Simon Snow before he knew about himself. 

All of the Magickal world did. After the news spread about the orphanage — the devastation, the children safely removed, the _Mage’s Heir_ — there was no other topic of conversation.

Mitali Bunce sent her older daughter off to school with name tapes on her clothing, and an old pair of glasses, to serve as a spare, and a family ring handed down from her great-aunt, and a warning about Simon Snow. 

The glasses would be needed when Penny’s primary pair were broken by a poorly-aimed charm from one of Baz’s henchmen. The name tapes were useless, as Penny did her own laundry from her first year.

And the warning about Simon Snow went unheeded. 

He looked half-starved, that first day in Magic Words, holding the Mage’s wand backwards. When Penny trailed after him to the dining hall and watched him eat three plates of toad in the hole, she knew he needed looking after.

 

**II**

Penny mixed the icing, and Agatha decorated the cookies, and Simon watched them work and ate the results.

It was the annual cookie gathering at Penny’s house, sixth year. Agatha and Simon had been allowed out from the Wellbeloves’ house while the Wellbeloves and Helen prepared for the annual Christmas Eve party.

Penny looked up from her cookie cutting to see her father looking in. She passed him the plate of cookies.

“Thanks, love,” her father said, taking a cookie without looking down at it, getting his finger in the still-soft icing. “I wondered if I could borrow Simon for a bit. There’s some troubling news about the holes.”

Simon nodded, and Penny and Agatha watched them go.

“I’m worried about him,” Penny said, looking down at the cookies instead of at Agatha.

Agatha didn’t say anything. Instead, she mixed a bit more red food coloring into one of the icing bowls, making it a lurid magenta.

“I think something’s going on,” Penny said. 

“There’s always something going on.” Agatha started spreading the magenta icing on the skirts of the gingerbread ladies. “I find it’s best to let Simon get on with it.”

Penny liked Agatha. Mostly. But she had never understood her, and likely never would. “Why not? There could be something we could do about it. We could help. What if Simon misses something? You know he doesn’t know everything about the Magickal world, Agatha.”

Agatha reached for the silver ball decorations and started carefully setting them into the hemline on the gingerbread ladies’ dresses. “We’ll find out soon enough, trust me.”

The timer buzzed, and Penny took another sheet of cookies out of the oven, casting a quick **Keep your cool** to cool the pan before placing it next to Agatha.

Agatha finished placing the last decorations on the cookies, and then looked up at Penny. “Do you ever wonder why everything is always about Simon?”

 

**III**

Simon spent weeks obsessing over the stolen moonstone.

“It’s just going to fall into the wrong hands,” he hissed to Penny and Agatha during Magic Words. “We have to stop it.”

Agatha ignored him. 

Penny set her charm on her practice beetle and then turned to Simon. “Don’t you mean the wrong paws?”

Simon scrunched his face at her. “No.”

“Because they’re werewolves,” Penny said. _Paws. Werewolves._ She knew it wasn’t a good joke, but Simon needed something — he was a ball of tension. 

“It’s not productive to emphasize the inhumanity of our opponents,” Simon said, in the voice that meant he was parroting something the Mage had said to him. “It leads us to let down our guard when fighting them. And anyway, Penny, you know how serious this is! The Moonstone could let them open the Vaults of Midnight!”

“Right,” Penny said, and patted Simon’s hand. “Sorry about that.”

They looked down at their beetles. Penny’s had turned a shiny gold and sat quietly, preening its antennae, while Simon’s was still a dirty brown and was scrabbling at the side of the cage.

“You should be practicing,” Penny said, finally. “You know what the Mage said.”

Simon looked down at his beetle. “I feel sorry for it,” he said quietly. “It’s not the beetle’s fault I’m rubbish.”

 

**IV**

The Mage’s office was lined with books, but not nice neat domesticated books like Penny’s father’s library. Instead, the Mage’s books were piled and dusty and looked like nobody was caring for them. It looked like a proper library gone to seed.

Penny dragged her eyes away from the bookshelves and back to the conversation between the Mage and Simon.

She’d tried to speak; tried to ask the Mage for help. Simon was sixteen — why was he being asked to handle Goblin hitmen on his own? Why was he expected to keep himself safe?

They were only a year and a half off from the end of Simon’s graduation. Penny knew as well as anyone that a storm was coming.

But was that a reason to force Simon to face goblins by himself?

The Mage thundered on, long and sonorous phases that added up to a simple truth: Simon was on his own.

On his own, except for Penny.

Penny put her hand on Simon’s shoulder as they left the office. 

(Agatha hadn’t come. Agatha never came to these things.)

 

**V**

It was only mid-afternoon, but inside the oak grove it felt more like twilight. Sunlight made it to the forest floor only as tiny speckles of light. Above them, the leaves of the grove seemed to glow an unnatural green. 

The magic poured off Simon, smothering green waves of smoke and burning.

 _You can breathe,_ Penny reminded herself, taking deep breaths and testing the air. It tasted like smoke on her tongue, but her lungs didn’t clench, didn’t react — her eyes didn’t burn. _It’s normal air,_ she reminded herself, _you know Dad tested it that time_.

“Penny! It’s not working!”

Simon was frantically waving his wand at the tree, which was failing to respond in the slightest.

“Calm down,” Penny said, putting a hand on Simon’s forearm. “You know not everything responds to power. We’ve got to try spells.”

“ _You_ try,” Simon said, spinning his back to the tree and taking up a defensive posture. “But solve it fast. I can’t hold them off for long.”

Behind them, they heard the sounds of the worseger herd, its screams overlapping and rising as they hunted among the trees. 

“Come on, Penny,” Simon said. “Your spell can’t hid us from them forever!”

“ _ **Open Sesame**_ ,” Penny cast, holding her ring up to the tree. 

Nothing happened.

Penny kept her calm, and threw spell after spell at the tree while Simon and the Sword of Mages took a defensive posture. _He can only kill so many worsegers at a time,_ Penny thought frantically, imaging Simon’s sword and her spells against the worseger herd.

It was an equation that ended with worsegers eating her flesh. 

Penny put her hand on the tree. “Please,” she said, desperately.

The tree shifted beneath her hand, a friendly movement like a chuckle. She had the sense of someone saying _you should have asked nicely earlier._

And the tree shifted open, behind them, revealing a stairway into the forest canopy.

When the worseger herd arrived, they found only a blank trunk. Penny and Simon were gone. 

 

**VI**

The boy sitting in the empty classroom was clearly in their year, but Penny hadn’t seen him before.

He wore the uniform like he had enlisted as a solider, back straight in his blazer. He also hadn’t taken off the boater hat, which perched on his neat black hair, perfectly straight.

“You don’t need to wear the boater indoors,” Penny said, sitting down next to him. “Just on the grounds.”

The boy looked over at her. “You’re sure?” he asked in a broad American accent. 

Penny laughed. “I’m not wearing mine, am I?”

“Thanks,” he said, taking his boater off and setting it down carefully on the table in front of him. “I think the other guys in my dorm think it’s funny to tell me the wrong thing.”

Penny looked at him properly, then.

“I’m Penny Bunce,” she said.

 And then she waited — _Penny Bunce? You’re friends with Simon Snow, aren’t you? Simon, the Chosen One? What are his powers really like? He’s not really as powerful as the Mage says he is, is he?_ All the questions her parents’ friends asked, all the questions anybody who hadn’t gotten to know Simon yet wanted answered. 

Instead, the boy smiled at her, a smile that lit up his face and his clear blue eyes. “I’m Micah.”

Penny smiled back. “Nice to meet you, Micah.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Five Times Penny’s Story Was All About Simon (and one time maybe it wasn’t)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10079210) by [greedy_dancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greedy_dancer/pseuds/greedy_dancer)




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